Environmental groups decry natural gas conversion of power plant

Say it’s no better than coal in the long run

Published
9:29 pm EDT, Wednesday, July 27, 2016

A coalition of environmental groups says a plan to convert a coal-fired Bridgeport power plant to one that runs on natural gas is indicative of a faulty regionwide strategy when it comes to addressing global warming.

A new report issued by the Toxics Action Center, Frontier Group, Environment America, and more than a dozen community groups across New England says natural gas-fired power plants as a bridge from burning coal to generate electricity yields no positive gains and may actually be worse in terms of global warming. The groups presented their findings in Bridgeport, where PSEG Power has agreed to replace the coal-powered Unit 3 of Bridgeport Harbor station with a 485-megawatt generation facility that will run largely on natural gas.

Construction of the new $550 million power plant is expected to begin in 2017, according to officials at the energy company, and be ready to run by June 2019. The existing coal-fired power plant produces 410 megawatts, but only runs during periods of peak demand.

The report’s claims center around a contention that there are significant amounts of natural gas that leak into the atmosphere from the time its is brought out of the ground to the time it is delivered to homes and power plants around the region. That is important because the report emphasizes that natural gas is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, trapping 86 to 105 times as much heat as carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

“Our review of the evidence suggests that these leaks may have an annual global warming impact equivalent of up to 250 coal-fired power plants, enough to nearly or completely offset any other climate benefits of natural gas,” Elizabeth Ridlington of Frontier Group and an author of the report said Wednesday.

Environmental groups have sought for years to have the coal-fired plant shut down, contending the particulate matter that is emitted from the plant is unhealthy for the neighbors of the plant to be inhaling.

Claire Miller, an organizer with the Toxics Action Center, said that while the change from coal to natural gas at the Bridgeport Harbor Station may have benefits to the plant’s neighbors, “it is local example of a regional problem.”

“We’re relying way too much on all these plants and all these pipelines,” Miller said. “Should we be planning to build 10 new natural gas plants in New England? We need more scrutiny, more questioning by the public and our political leaders on whether or not we’re overbuilding.”

A spokeswoman for New Jersey-based PSEG Power, which also operates the New Haven Harbor power plant, said the company had not seen the report from the environmental groups and would defer comment until then. Dennis Schain, a spokesman for Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said the “conversion of the Bridgeport Harbor station plant to natural gas will help improve air quality in the area around the plant ... and will reduce carbon emissions to help our state address the issue of climate change.”

“Connecticut is making great progress in moving toward increased reliance on renewable energy sources, such as solar power,” Schain said. “We are actually a national model as a result of the initiatives we have put in place. During this time of transition, however, continued investments in projects such as the one in Bridgeport are needed to help us meet our energy needs.”